Behavioural responses to a warming world – lessons from arid zone birds
Institute Seminar by Susan Cunningham
- Date: Dec 3, 2024
- Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: Susan Cunningham
- Susie is the Director of the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, at the University of Cape Town. She grew up in New Zealand and obtained her BSc in Ecology & Biodiversity from Victoria University of Wellington and PhD in Ecology at Massey University. Susie joined the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology as a post doctoral fellow in 2010 to work on the ‘Hot Birds Research Project’ – a research programme aimed at understanding climate change impacts on birds (HBRP). She was appointed to the academic staff of the Fitz in 2015 and became Director in 2023. She leads the behaviour branch of the HBRP, in close collaboration with ecophysiologist Prof. Andrew McKechnie of the University of Pretoria. A major focus of Susie’s research is on understanding the behavioural and ecophysiological responses of birds to high temperatures, with view to predicting climate change impacts. Her work in this area focuses on fitness consequences associated with thermoregulatory trade-offs, using predominantly Kalahari species, but also Fynbos, Karoo and urban birds, as model taxa. Susie is also interested in the behavioural flexibility of animals in the face of ecological change: how environmental factors, particularly temperature and aridity, but also urbanisation, drive behavioural decisions and their consequences for individual fitness and the evolution of life history strategies.
- Location: University of Konstanz + online
- Room: ZT 702
- Host: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
- Contact: hbronnvik@ab.mpg.de
Animals’ responses to climate change are shaped by mechanistic links between climate, performance and fitness. Extreme temperatures and unpredictable resource availability mean that birds in arid zones live near the edge of physiological tolerance limits, making them ideal models for studying these links. I will present data on twelve-plus years of research on birds in the arid zones of Southern Africa, collected by the Hot Birds Research Project (HBRP) - an international collaboration based at the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology. Our work focuses on the behavioural and physiological mechanisms by which birds are vulnerable or resilient to climate change. I will describe some of our key findings on how behaviour mediates the relationship between thermal physiology and the thermal environment: with potential to both buffer and exacerbate climate risk. I will include data on how habitat structure, resource availability and sociality can modify impacts of hot weather on behaviour and fitness outcomes. Our results highlight that data on animal behaviour can be used to aid conservation decision-making; and suggest that behavioural responses to our warming climate might shape functioning of future ecosystems.
The MPI-AB Seminar Series is open to members of MPI and Uni Konstanz. The zoom link is published each week in the MPI-AB newsletter.